Jim Gaffigan Returns Again

Comedian Jim Gaffigan feels privileged about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jim returns to sit down with Conan once more to discuss his foray into SNL history portraying Tim Walz, the worst possible audiences for stand-up comedy, the full story of their joint visit to the Vatican, and Jim's new special The Skinny. Plus, Conan and his team look back approaching the show’s sixth anniversary with another State of the Podcast address. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 03

  What do I gift my mom and nieces?

• 0:31Speaker 04

  Walmart has top brands you know, like Ninja, Disney, Lego.

• 0:38Speaker 03

  Oh, Dad loves music.

• 0:39Speaker 04

  Sonos can bring his songs to life with sound that hits just right.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  And my coffee-obsessed bestie?

• 0:48Speaker 04

  Delongi Brews Coffee, right for mornings extra-price.

• 0:51Speaker 03

  All those great brands at Walmart? Who knew?

• 0:53Speaker 04

  We knew, now you do, too. Shop gifts no love at Walmart.

• 1:03Speaker 05

  My name is Jim Gaffigan, and I feel...

• 1:10Speaker 05

  I told myself I wasn't gonna cry.

• 1:15Speaker 05

  I feel...

• 1:18Speaker 05

  Like they're gonna edit this.

• 1:23Speaker 05

  I feel, uh, privileged.

• 1:25Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 1:26Speaker 05

  About being Conan... Oh, Breen.

• 1:29Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's so nice.

• 1:53Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I am the aforementioned COB, joined by Sonum of Sesian.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  S-S.

• 2:00Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, MJ.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  M-J-G.

• 2:03Conan O'Brien?

  Well, just, I don't wanna know your middle name.

• 2:07Conan O'Brien?

  The less I know about you at this point, the better. You don't wanna know an animal too well before you put it down. Any hoots? What's up, gang? What's happening? What's the haps?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you tell us.

• 2:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, big news.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Big news.

• 2:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, yep, it was announced. Was it, uh, Friday, I guess, it was announced that, uh...

• 2:23Speaker 01

  It was this evergreen.

• 2:25Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's right. Sorry. Yes. Uh, there is some big news out there. Would you like to tell us what it is, Sona?

• 2:30Speaker 07

  Well, you've been tapped to host the Oscars in 2025, which is a really big deal. It's really cool.

• 2:36Conan O'Brien?

  That's cool. Oh, why are you guys silently applauding?

• 2:39Speaker 07

  Oh.

• 2:40Conan O'Brien?

  Wow. Guess what? That is the amount of applause I'll get when I walk out on stage. I think there's also partially a reason. It'll be the sound of two hands clapping.

• 2:49Speaker 07

  America's wanting to know because, you know, Sona and I are essentially your co-hosts on this podcast. Why aren't we co-hosting the Oscars with you? Yes, yes, I know. I can I, I have to mention this Vulture article real quick.

• 3:00Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 3:00Speaker 07

  Because Vulture is my favorite entertainment article. And it said Conan O'Brien will host the 2025 Academy Awards. And at the end, it says, now that O'Brien is our official host, we got to ask, will his assistant Sona Movsesian be there? Will she get to be on stage? What happens with Sona Movsesian in all of this? So it's not just us asking.

• 3:20Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, nothing about Matthew James Gourley?

• 3:22Speaker 07

  You know what? After I said it, I was like, oh shit, he didn't mention anything about.

• 3:26Conan O'Brien?

  I quit. No, no, there's another article. It's in, uh, the Pasadena Post. Well, it's actually, it's not, it's more of a supermarket circular.

• 3:37Speaker 07

  How do we fit in? What do we do?

• 3:38Conan O'Brien?

  It said, it said, uh, 89 cent sale on roast beef, pre-sliced, and Matt J. Gourley. And it definitively says should not be. Should not be in any way. Uh, Sona, Sona.

• 3:50Speaker 07

  Where do we go? What do we, what do you want us to do, boss?

• 3:52Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, uh, Sona, it's the Oscars.

• 3:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, I know.

• 3:56Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, they made him a, you know, they let me in, which was probably a mistake, but I don't know, Sona, um, that's a big night. That's. Come on. I know so much about movies. You only know about Bond films. That's not true. That's true. That's not true. The movies you know about are not in the Criterion Collection. Let's put it that way. You don't know about the classics. Are you kidding me? Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 07

  See, this is the type of shit you can have at the Oscars.

• 4:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's, this is, this is a great top to the show right here. What about you, Sona? What have you got to say for yourself? Pitch yourself, pitch yourself.

• 4:29Speaker 07

  I am the only person in this, among the three of us, who knows new things, including new movies.

• 4:35Conan O'Brien?

  New movies like after 1991?

• 4:38Speaker 07

  Yes, exactly. So I think it's a natural fit.

• 4:41Conan O'Brien?

  Name one new movie. Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 07

  Uh, that came out this year?

• 4:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 07

  Now I'm on the spot and I'm really nervous.

• 4:48Conan O'Brien?

  Nora Conclave?

• 4:50Speaker 07

  I know, heretic with my boy Hugh. I mean, there's just, look, I can't keep you guys hip.

• 4:57Conan O'Brien?

  But, but.

• 4:58Speaker 07

  I'm a millennial.

• 4:59Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, but you're pitching yourself and I think Vulture is pitching you.

• 5:03Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 5:04Conan O'Brien?

  And shout out to Vulture, I think they, they do amazing work, but.

• 5:06Speaker 07

  Love Vulture.

• 5:07Conan O'Brien?

  They're okay. But, um.

• 5:11Conan O'Brien?

  Iced by Vulture. God damn. Gourley, uh, but listen, um, pitch yourself for what you would do on air. Okay, you're a millennial and stuff, but seriously, what are you gonna do?

• 5:23Speaker 07

  Okay, I can't sing.

• 5:24Conan O'Brien?

  Right. Sold.

• 5:26Speaker 07

  I can't dance.

• 5:27Conan O'Brien?

  And you have, and you have hard G's.

• 5:29Speaker 07

  I'm terr- yeah, I'm terrible with, like, if you have, like, prepared material for me.

• 5:34Conan O'Brien?

  Anything that requires.

• 5:36Speaker 07

  I can do any accent.

• 5:37Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, let's hear it. Oh my god.

• 5:39Speaker 07

  Give me an accent.

• 5:40Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, French. South African. French, French.

• 5:43Speaker 07

  Oh, French is like this, I can do French, it's easy.

• 5:45Conan O'Brien?

  South African.

• 5:46Speaker 07

  Uh, South African, I'm South African.

• 5:48Conan O'Brien?

  No, you're Austrian.

• 5:49Speaker 07

  I'm South African.

• 5:50Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, that's not bad.

• 5:51Speaker 07

  I'm South African.

• 5:52Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 5:53Speaker 07

  Yes, no, District Nine, District Nine.

• 5:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yes! No. She's very good. Wait a minute.

• 5:59Speaker 07

  I'm South African.

• 5:59Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, okay, Austrian.

• 6:01Speaker 07

  Uh, Austrian, Christoph Waltz, I'm Austrian.

• 6:05Conan O'Brien?

  What, you just say the names of people in your impressions? Oh my god, Vulture, are you listening?

• 6:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, uh, it's like a German accent artist. No, fuck, I don't know what that was, shut up.

• 6:17Conan O'Brien?

  Shitza, shitza.

• 6:19Speaker 07

  What?

• 6:19Conan O'Brien?

  Shitza's shit in German.

• 6:21Speaker 07

  Oh, shitza, oh, no, I thought that was another thing you wanted me to do in action. I, I crush it with accents.

• 6:26Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, can I just say something? I was skeptical, you're out, Gourley. And, and listen. No, no. Vulture, shh. I'm hosting the Golden Globes. Yeah, sure, yeah. But Sona, uh, I am impressed.

• 6:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 6:38Conan O'Brien?

  Because now I'm thinking of all these really funny bits I could do where I'd say, everyone settle down. And then I hear. No. A French person in the crowd.

• 6:45Speaker 07

  My friends don't know this, I'm an Oscar.

• 6:47Conan O'Brien?

  And the crowd says.

• 6:48Speaker 07

  Oh, Conan O'Brien.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  The Oscars are my Super Bowl, you guys have sports.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  I don't have sports.

• 6:54Conan O'Brien?

  Listen, Matt, you are so not a part of this conversation that I can't even hear you right now. Okay? And I guess it's a silent J, because I can't hear you. Now, Sona, Sona.

• 7:07Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 7:08Conan O'Brien?

  I think you have a good chance of being in the Oscars somehow.

• 7:11Speaker 07

  Thank you. Scottish. I could do Scottish.

• 7:13Conan O'Brien?

  And guess what? I'm pretty sure I don't have to clear this with anybody at the Academy.

• 7:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 7:17Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, my feeling is they gave me the keys to the whole show. That's my guess.

• 7:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think so.

• 7:22Conan O'Brien?

  Because, and so, uh, I guess what I say goes. So you're gonna be the first 40 minutes. And I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, listen, uh, the Oscars is all about, uh, it's not just about the United States. It's about the world of film. Here now is everyone in the world, representing all nations. You come out in a combination of 15 different national costumes.

• 7:47Speaker 07

  Easy.

• 7:48Conan O'Brien?

  And you welcome everybody in different accents.

• 7:51Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 7:52Conan O'Brien?

  Go!

• 7:53Speaker 07

  Give me an accent!

• 7:54Conan O'Brien?

  Just start doing, going, going!

• 7:58Speaker 07

  And then we go, "Oh, I'm Scottish. I'm a Scottish person. I'm Scottish."

• 8:04Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, God.

• 8:05Speaker 07

  "Meredith, you're going to get married. You can't do archery, Meredith. I'm doing brave."

• 8:10Conan O'Brien?

  And then... Hey, hey, guess what? Guess what?

• 8:13Speaker 04

  What?

• 8:13Conan O'Brien?

  Girlie, I've never agreed with Sona before, but you've got to shut the fuck up.

• 8:19Speaker 07

  I can't just, like, think of accents. Can you just tell me accents?

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Mexican.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, Mexican. Do Mexican, Sona.

• 8:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, and, and do it. Do Mexican in front of Eduardo.

• 8:33Speaker 07

  I, can I be honest? I, I'm not...

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Look into his eyes and do a Mexican accent.

• 8:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'll do it like Conan.

• 8:40Conan O'Brien?

  That's not what I do.

• 8:44Conan O'Brien?

  But okay, okay, see you. Piss, piss.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 8:50Speaker 07

  We're killing time here.

• 8:51Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, listen, yeah, and the Oscars is all about killing time.

• 8:55Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 8:55Conan O'Brien?

  It, it's, when they run it efficiently, it's six hours long.

• 8:59Speaker 07

  You've got four hours where you have to come up with material.

• 9:03Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no, it's four hours of solid show and all the stuff they have to get through.

• 9:08Speaker 07

  How important are the awards?

• 9:10Conan O'Brien?

  I think I'm being given, I think I get probably a total of 48 seconds total on them.

• 9:15Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 9:15Conan O'Brien?

  If they're smart, that's what they'll do. Uh, anyway, um, yes, uh, I will be hosting the 2025 Oscars, apparently, uh, with Sonam of Sessian, Woman of a Thousand Voices.

• 9:28Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 9:29Conan O'Brien?

  And with, I'm gonna be nice here, uh, the backstage, behind the scenes help.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  I'm the only one that would truly, truly appreciate this.

• 9:39Conan O'Brien?

  No!

• 9:39Speaker 03

  You're just a freeloader.

• 9:41Conan O'Brien?

  No!

• 9:41Speaker 03

  You're just a goddamn cocktail riding hack. I'm the only one that loves these guys.

• 9:46Conan O'Brien?

  I said you're gonna be there!

• 9:47Speaker 03

  I don't wanna be backstage, I wanna be in the lights, I wanna be rubbing elbows with Nicholson.

• 9:53Conan O'Brien?

  Nicholson?

• 9:54Speaker 07

  Nicholson?

• 9:55Conan O'Brien?

  You'll have to go to his, he's at home in his basement.

• 9:57Speaker 07

  I don't think he's been to the last, like, 15 Oscars.

• 10:00Conan O'Brien?

  He's living in another time.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck you.

• 10:04Conan O'Brien?

  Anyway, let's get to it. We got a lot of, uh, we got a lot of show today. Uh, my guest today is a hilarious comedian whose latest comedy special, Jim Gaffigan, The Skinny, is now available to stream on Hulu.

• 10:21Conan O'Brien?

  Jim Gaffigan, welcome.

• 10:26Conan O'Brien?

  I'm thrilled that you are here because I was curious today and I thought, how many times did Jim come on my late night show over the years because you were a regular fixture? Thirty times.

• 10:39Speaker 05

  Really?

• 10:40Conan O'Brien?

  You came on, you do stand-up, you could also do hilarious panel, you could do everything, and I'll just say this upfront, every time with a completely new set of material, you are, for my money, the most prolific comedy mind that I can think of.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Well, as you-

• 10:56Conan O'Brien?

  That's it, gotta go.

• 10:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, but it is, it is, I mean, that's what's so rewarding is the, the coming up with the material, right?

• 11:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  That's the whole lesson that I want to share with everyone. It's enjoying the process.

• 11:11Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 11:12Speaker 05

  No, but there is something, like, whenever I get frustrated, I lose sight the fact that it is really rewarding to kind of come up with material and, and be able to do it.

• 11:23Conan O'Brien?

  It's one of the reasons why you're one of the biggest comedy stars out there now.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  Oh, my, thank you.

• 11:27Conan O'Brien?

  And I say one of, like, there's like thirty-five.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  I mean, there's like thirty-

• 11:31Conan O'Brien?

  I'm sorry, one hundred and thirty-five.

• 11:32Speaker 05

  Hundred and thirty-five.

• 11:33Conan O'Brien?

  Of the two thousand top comedy people-

• 11:35Speaker 05

  Of the people in the Los Angeles County. You are eight thousand.

• 11:42Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, I mean, the other nice thing too is I've seen people ride this crazy wave and then, and then that kind of compete her out. And you have consistently, over the years, you're always really funny. It just kept building and building and building and building. And now your, your level of success is, is mind boggling. And I look at your whole career and I go, oh, you just, it was all earned in this very like-

• 12:08Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 12:08Conan O'Brien?

  I say that in a very Catholic way, but you, it was all built. You've built this thing and now you're, I'm, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone else who could tour with Jerry Seinfeld, you know?

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 12:19Conan O'Brien?

  It's crazy.

• 12:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it's, I mean, I'm very grateful and it's a weird thing. You know, there is nothing normal about going on stage and trying to make strangers laugh. So that's whenever, like, comedians are like, yeah, these weird people, I'm like, but like, there's nothing weirder than going on stage and trying to get the approval of a roomful of strangers.

• 12:40Conan O'Brien?

  Right. Who sometimes are hostile to begin with.

• 12:43Speaker 05

  And also, it's like, it is a conversation, but it's very, you know, it is very one-sided. It's like, I'm the only one with a microphone and if they responded verbally, I'd have them removed.

• 12:56Speaker 05

  It is, it is a unique conversation. But it is the perfect type of conversation where they can respond with hee hee hee or silence. That's one of their options.

• 13:07Conan O'Brien?

  Did you ever have this? I have found- For some sick reason, I, there's always part of me that enjoys the silence. Okay, get a laugh, get a laugh, and then, eh, nothing. I, I enjoyed.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:21Conan O'Brien?

  In some sick way, I enjoyed that, and it's hard to explain to people that you want laughs, but what I really want is some laughs, and then I want a big dead spot. Where we can all sit down as a group and wonder, what just happened?

• 13:35Speaker 05

  Well, you wanna relieve the tension, right?

• 13:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  I, you know, you can identify that in comedians. Like, Bill Burr will say a statement where people are like, come on, don't say that.

• 13:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  And then, he will win you over, and you're like, alright, yeah, I guess you have a point there.

• 13:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know if I'd say it, I'd phrase it the way you're saying, but yeah, you make a point.

• 13:55Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 13:56Speaker 05

  But a lot of comedians love that tension.

• 13:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:59Speaker 05

  When you relieve it or release it, it's more rewarding. You know what is, uh, what I've been dying to talk to you about ever since we did that benefit with God's Love Delivered?

• 14:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, we did a benefit together, I'll just set it up. We did a benefit together in New York City at the Beacon Theater. It was God's Love, We Deliver.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  It's an incredible organization. We visited the day before.

• 14:20Conan O'Brien?

  It's a giant kitchen where they make food. Um, I think it-

• 14:23Speaker 05

  For people that are ill, and then also for their caretakers. It's like, it's the whole package. It, I think it really kinda kicked off, uh, during the AIDS epidemic, but it's like, been going strong.

• 14:34Conan O'Brien?

  It's expanded, it's this amazing organization, and one of the things they asked is, could you guys come down, who are, who are part of the show, can you come down to meet all the workers and sort of participate and work in the kitchen, which we all did, which was fascinating.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was amazing. Oh, but, so then we, so we're figuring out what we're gonna do for this. And then, there's also, uh, these elements where they're like, I think it was that event where they're like, Bill Murray might show up, Martin Short might show up, and here's what I'm getting to. Like, there is, cause there's this ongoing kind of, uh, you show affection by criticizing someone. It's, and then how that overlaps with roast comedy. And here's my point. My point is, I believe the, the most powerful roaster or roast comic that's ever existed, and this includes Don Rickles. I think Martin Short-

• 15:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I'm totally with you.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Is beyond a doubt the quickest, meanest.

• 15:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  So funny.

• 15:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  And he does the Jiminy Glick because he's a sweet guy.

• 15:40Conan O'Brien?

  And he can hide in the fat suit.

• 15:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 15:42Conan O'Brien?

  And say things like, you know, your career never quite took off, never did it, you know?

• 15:47Speaker 05

  And so he's stating the obvious.

• 15:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  And, I'm sorry, I cut you off.

• 15:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no, go ahead, but he came out. He came out, I was out, you were out, and then he came out and I think he went after both of us. And of course, you and I are like kids in a candy shop.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  The artistry of what he does it, and compared to like roasting, where you see someone, you know, even the Tom Brady roast, or you think of Don Rickles, who is obviously magical, but what Marty does, he does it in such, and by the way, none of it's scripted. I think he's just, he just does it.

• 16:21Conan O'Brien?

  I know, I think he had, I do think he thinks of them. I think he thinks ahead of time, not to take anything away from him.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  Maybe some of the Jiminy Glick.

• 16:28Conan O'Brien?

  Because the writing is, I mean, it's so sharp, but I think some of them, no, he can do it. He can do it ad lib, but I think he also has some loaded up.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  When we did the God's Love Delivered, he literally walked out, stole the whole show, just dressing us down.

• 16:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  For five minutes and left.

• 16:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  He was shooting the next day. He's 75 years old, walked out, ripped into us, left. And everyone's like, well, that's the best part of the show.

• 16:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean?

• 16:54Conan O'Brien?

  And he's too pale, these two skeletons are standing there.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  We're like, eh.

• 16:58Conan O'Brien?

  Anyway. Maybe Marty will come back. Stay on your seats. That was a joy.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  And he's also a sweet guy.

• 17:06Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, he's the real deal, yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 05

  When he's not performing, you're like, like, it's, I don't know, maybe he's got a split personality. And he was also great on that. He's a great actor, too.

• 17:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  He was great. Now it's like I'm trying to win him over for some job.

• 17:22Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it's a good guy. He's, you know, he's riding high.

• 17:25Speaker 05

  He's riding high. I think he controls some purse strings.

• 17:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I want to ask you about, you know, you've been in comedy for so long, but you never, your DNA never merged with Saturday Night Live, and then you get this gig to play Tim Walz during the run up to the election. So suddenly you're in. In the world of SNL, it was kind of interesting to me because I thought, oh, I want to get Jim's take.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:49Conan O'Brien?

  On SNL because he's a really smart, funny guy. And I know that that was something that would, you know, everyone wants to check that bucket list off.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 17:56Conan O'Brien?

  So what was that like for you?

• 17:58Speaker 05

  It was really interesting because that is one of the questions that, you know, I've been doing stand up or in the comedy thing for 35 years and I never auditioned for SNL. I've never hosted, never. And it's just, it never lined up where it was a possibility. I think there was talk of me auditioning to be a writer, but at that time I was like, no, I want to be an actor. I want to be on the West Wing. And so I, I mean, I'll just, no, but I was.

• 18:31Conan O'Brien?

  Terrible instincts. Why Rob Lowe? What's he got that I don't got?

• 18:36Speaker 05

  No, it's the, the ultimate graduate school of comedy, right? To go there, there's nothing that, it's unique to the, the comedy business. I mean, it's a unique television show in that they, you know, outside of Living Color and Mad TV, no one's even come close to replicating. It probably financially doesn't make sense. And it's the impact on the zeitgeist. So it was a huge thing. There is, I've always been, been aware that it's something that you don't campaign for.

• 19:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 19:06Speaker 05

  And so I'm respectful of the, the boundaries and kind of the cultural phenomenon that it is. So when she picked Tim Walz as her running mate and then Steve Martin turned it down. You know, the internet was bringing up like every doughy, white, midwestern guy. And I was like interested, but I was like, well, I'm not, you know, you can't campaign for it.

• 19:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 19:32Speaker 05

  You can't.

• 19:32Conan O'Brien?

  You either get the call or you don't.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. You can't be like, hey, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go on Howard Stern and do my Tim Walz impression. You can't do that, right? And so I very much stood back and then I would check in with my manager who would say, you know, here's what they're thinking. You know, but you're supposedly on a list. And again, there's nothing you can do on it. And so then I was in, uh, you know, I get one acting job a year. So I was in in England doing this acting job and then, and at night I'm walking back to my hotel and I get a call from my manager and he's like, hey, so we've been telling people at the Booker at SNL that you've been sending us little videos where you're pretending to be Tim Walz.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And he goes,

• 20:19Conan O'Brien?

  And you weren't.

• 20:20Speaker 05

  And I wasn't. And, and so he was on with my manager, my manager and I, and I'm like, oh, that's an interesting approach. But you know, this is what you guys do. And they're like, yeah, now they want to see those. And I'm like, so what do you mean they want to see them? I'm like, well, we brought it up and now they're like, why don't you send them?

• 20:37Conan O'Brien?

  I'd be mad at this management team.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  And so, so I, then I spent the next hour kind of in my hotel room, taking off a jacket, putting on a thing, doing different. And I had kind of been, you know, checking out, uh, Tim Walz and looking at speeches. And then I just, in that moment, I just did an impression of my brother Mitch, who is this similar to Tim Walz, a very sincere, enthusiastic,

• 21:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 05

  Midwestern guy who's kind of got a little bit of that golly gee. And so I essentially did an impression of my brother Mitch in a different settings in this England hotel. Sent him off and then, uh, you know, I don't know what happened, but it worked.

• 21:20Conan O'Brien?

  They hired your brother Mitch.

• 21:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. So when people are like, how do you do that impression? I'm like, well, just don't meet my brother Mitch and we should be fine.

• 21:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Grow up in Indiana.

• 21:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. Grow up in Indiana. Surround yourself with very sincere, uh, Midwestern people that have that optimism that Tim Walz has. You know, which is like, we can do this.

• 21:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? I mean, geez, come on, Jimmy. You know, like that's my, my brother Mitch. I mean, geez, Jimmy. I mean, Jimmy, you're a bad driver. Like my brother Mitch would just get so angry when I would drive.

• 21:54Conan O'Brien?

  He's even sweet when he's telling you bad things about yourself.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  Yes. He's like a great guy. So it's, that's, that's what happened. But it was absurd because not only was I, So this opportunity to be on SNL, and it was just for five weeks, but I then they bring in all these all-stars, right? So they bring in Maya, who I had worked with before Dana and Andy. And I'm like, so not only am I doing this guest star, but like the MVP from every decade for the last 40 years. So it was it was stressful in a in an unnecessary way where it's like, you know, I go on stage in front of huge rooms, but I was like, I have two lines, how do I do it? So I was definitely a little nervous.

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• 23:28Conan O'Brien?

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• 23:57Conan O'Brien?

  Did you like the machinery of it being around? There's nothing else like it.

• 24:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:03Conan O'Brien?

  And I've always thought there is the carnival atmosphere of it, the machine aspect of it. It's Willy Wonka's factory. It's all these things that you grew up watching and then suddenly you're inside it. And then there's the, the build up to the show.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:19Conan O'Brien?

  There's the meeting between dress and air. And then after the show, there's a party. It's, it's this whole Roman kind of crazy. It's, it's like the, the, the Colosseum followed by the orgy. You're just, what's happening? This is madness.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  It is, it's insane every step of the way. So I remember I did the table read the first week. I guess that's on Tuesday. And then I was like, all right, I know what I'm, and I know that there's going to be a lot of changes. And then by the end, I would be like calling my point person at like 10, you know, eight o'clock on Friday. I'm like, do we know what we're doing? And they're like, I'm gonna send it up. You know, it's just, cause it's the cold open and it was the election. So there were kind of, you know, what? And so like, yeah, there were things where if you have an idea, you're looking at a writer who's been up for four days,

• 25:11Speaker 05

  who's also realizing there's, there's, uh, there's the element of serving everyone in the, the cold open. There's also Lauren's stuff. So it's, it's a very complicated thing. So you're like, I don't want to be a pain in the ass. Like one of the things I kind of pride myself on is hopefully being a good soldier when I'm in a situation like that. Cause having.

• 25:35Conan O'Brien?

  Do your part well, don't let anybody down.

• 25:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, and not be the pain in the ass. So I kind of want to do that. But yeah, so that whole process of the bureaucracy, and, and maybe that's not the right term, but it's, the process is so bananas.

• 25:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  That you also have to just go with the flow. And then the meeting in between the dress where Lauren would go up there and be like, don't touch your ear. And you're like, okay. All right, I won't touch, I, you know, I didn't know I was touching my ear, but okay. And some of it is, he's giving his notes, he's also this icon who obviously, you know, like, I, I realize now that he is the modern day equivalent of P T Barnum, right? Like, the impact he has on the zeitgeist is so enormous. So he sits there and he goes, yeah, we're not gonna do that. Or like, things that you, I think people could judge as bizarre.

• 26:34Speaker 05

  But if you consider the history and the on base percentage, the batting average, it's, it's pure genius.

• 26:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. If someone could watch the process of how a sketch gets written, and then it's read through, I do think it's Wednesday, as it gets read through on Wednesday, and then it gets to rehearsal, then it gets to the, the dress show, then there's that meeting beforehand, and then they select, you know, they select the sketches, finally, they reorder it, and then there's the air show that happens. I think watching that process would make less sense than how they pick up Pope at the Vatican. I think there's this, there's more mystery, smoke signals, craziness, you know, Cardinals making crazy deals. In behind ancient walls, that would seem more normal than what happens at Saturday Night Live.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  And I think there is also something of the resiliency that you need to process. I mean, you went through it, but the resiliency that these creative types, these people that are creative, because they know how to react, listen to their emotions, or keep in touch with their point of view. But, cause even the, so like, I only did one table read, so like, I don't even know what day that is. And then also like the, the moving parts, like, I think on the last episode, they dressed, they, they did cuts. And then I think they had to cut a sketch mid-show.

• 28:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, they do, all the time.

• 28:02Speaker 05

  Just like, how do you, yeah, not happening.

• 28:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, I, I, back in my day, I authored several of those sketches where you're, I've called my parents and I've said it's about two, you know, coal miners, and their, and their, you know, their little bird that's with them, and, and then, uh, look for me, cause that, I mean, that's my sketch, and it's gonna be on at 12:55, and my parents would be like, well, we're gonna watch, yay. My, my father was Ronald Reagan, well, well, and we are the Democrats with the taxes. We could use you up on Capitol Hill. Um, so, uh, and then at 12:48, I'd see my card come off. Cause other stuff went long, so my card would come off the board and go to the side of the board.

• 28:48Conan O'Brien?

  Which means there's this side of the board that's outside the grid. Where literally you see your card slipping beneath the waves. And so suddenly, my parents the next day, well, we thought it was terrific. It wasn't on.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:02Conan O'Brien?

  They are lying.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 29:05Conan O'Brien?

  We love you. They went to bed at nine. Um, and, uh, so anyway, I was just, I'm, I'm so happy that you got to have.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:13Conan O'Brien?

  That experience. And I'll just, I'll just put it out there, um, uh, you'd be the perfect host for that show. And, um, and you are in the zeitgeist now and they'd be lucky to have you. So from my lips to Lauren's ears.

• 29:26Speaker 05

  Well, I am, I am, uh, standing back. I have no opinion on that. I am. I have all respect.

• 29:34Conan O'Brien?

  I will not serve.

• 29:35Speaker 05

  I will, uh, I have all respect for the process.

• 29:40Conan O'Brien?

  The convention. I will do as I'm told. Um, I was gonna ask you about, cause there's something about, I'm just always trying to figure out. Especially comedic minds I really admire. I want to get into a little bit of the workings of where they're from. I know you went to an insanely small high school in Indiana. Like, how small are we talking?

• 29:59Speaker 05

  There were a hundred and five kids in the entire school, but there were 25 in my graduating class. There were five girls. Oh, my God. And 20 guys.

• 30:11Conan O'Brien?

  Jesus.

• 30:12Speaker 05

  And, uh, but, uh, Chief Justice John Roberts went there.

• 30:16Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, really?

• 30:17Speaker 05

  And, um, but it was, it was kind of, uh, yeah. So now I think it's 150.

• 30:24Speaker 05

  Students.

• 30:25Conan O'Brien?

  It's just blown up. Seven girls.

• 30:27Speaker 05

  Now it's huge. Now it's.

• 30:30Conan O'Brien?

  Six girls.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  But it was a great experience and you know, you know, there is a delusion in those smaller schools where you're like, you know what? Yeah. And so like, I didn't have that John Hughes experience where there were the potheads and the jocks and the beautiful people. It's like everyone was everything.

• 30:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  So I think that kind of had an impact where I didn't necessarily, um, I wasn't. So when I got to college, I wasn't swayed by, I shouldn't, I should only hang around football players or I should only do this or that. Yeah.

• 31:05Conan O'Brien?

  Somewhere you got this ability. There are a lot of comedians I admire, but I know, well, they can kill in front of this crowd, but they should probably stay away from that kind of crowd or vice versa. They have their, their areas. I feel like I can't imagine a crowd that you wouldn't kill in front of. You do feel like a, someone who talks to everybody.

• 31:27Speaker 05

  Oh, well, thanks. Yeah. No, it is, it is weird because having done corporates, you've done corporates.

• 31:33Conan O'Brien?

  I've done some corporate, but really not, not much. I've, sometimes the assignment is just like.

• 31:38Speaker 05

  It's so bizarre.

• 31:39Conan O'Brien?

  You know, make sure you mention, and, and, and you know, whatever, the CEO.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:44Conan O'Brien?

  You make sure you mention, you know, really get him and something just, I don't know.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then you look at the CEO and they're like, don't do that.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  But I used to.

• 31:54Conan O'Brien?

  I hear he's a real shithead. That was my go-to line. And they'd be like, hey, we thought you had a joke or something.

• 32:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. They're, well, sometimes they're, they're like, you can make fun of, make fun of, you know, Mindy, she's in charge of marketing. Go after her. And then you look at Mindy. I don't do that stuff anyway, but then you look at Mindy and she's like, what are you doing?

• 32:16Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just in charge of marketing.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  It was just that one person's bad idea. Do you know what I mean? And so, but the corporate setting is such a, like, there is part of me that, uh, cause I feel like I can work in those corporate settings where I, that means that it might be all over. Cause like, I would do a corporate show. I would bomb and then you get off and they were like, you were great.

• 32:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 05

  And I was like, no one laughed.

• 32:41Conan O'Brien?

  They're like, we're too rich to laugh.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, we were golfing all day. So, but you were much better than the guy before who made fun of Mindy.

• 32:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. This was one. As I say, I've tried to, I've tried to not do it too much, but there was one, it was, I think, an integration, maybe with the Turner show. I can't say the name of the company, but it was a telecommunications company, and we had to do this. They said, "Hey, Conan, they're buying time on the show and they really want you to go." So I remember I got on a plane and flew somewhere, and they say they're in there. It's the top. It wasn't, and I come out, I had wrote jokes, because you can't do standard stuff. It's gotta be for them, and it's gotta be about this company and stuff like that. So a lot of work went into it. I walked out

• 33:32Conan O'Brien?

  there. I want to say it was about maybe 12, I think, all guys, and they were in big leather chairs that reclined slightly. And I looked out, there was a big window behind them, and they had projected the famous logo of the company onto a mountain that you could see in the night through the window. So I walked out there, and it was these, and I start doing my, and I thought, "Oh, this is, I've never felt more like a pathetic, you know, "Bring the clown in. Bring the clown. We're ready for the clown." And I could see some of them-

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Do not challenge the king too much.

• 34:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And I could see, they weren't really laughing, but they had wry smiles. And occasionally, I could see one of them adjust his recliner a little more. And I started to make fun of the fact that the logo was projected onto a mountain. Like, this all felt evil. And I'm sort of sure to go off on that. And they, one of them deined a crane his neck to see, "Oh, yes, it is, isn't it? What is wrong with that? That's as it should be, as it always is." And I just left shivering. And I was, it was, I don't know, it was a terrible experience.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. Have you done a birthday party? That's pretty weird.

• 34:53Conan O'Brien?

  I did a very famous person's birthday party for no money.

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 34:57Conan O'Brien?

  I did it as a favor-

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Oh, that must have went well. If there was no money, that means it's pure death. Birthday person themselves or one of their children or something?

• 35:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, it was for the person. It was a famous person who and and and it was a personal favor because they had they had done the show a bunch of times and they one of their their management said, hey, Conan, would you stop by and just do? And I remember it again, feeling like, bring him in.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:23Conan O'Brien?

  You know, it was just, uh,

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:25Conan O'Brien?

  Let's see if he amuses us. And I I didn't like it. I it's fun to perform for real people.

• 35:32Speaker 05

  But there is.

• 35:33Conan O'Brien?

  Humans.

• 35:33Speaker 05

  But there are people like Regis Philbin would love that. And the people are listening are like, who's Regis Philbin? But there are some people, it is kind of in their DNA, but like.

• 35:44Conan O'Brien?

  He would love doing it or love being the recipient? What do you mean?

• 35:46Speaker 05

  They I think someone like, not that I know Regis or knew him, but like, there's some people that are like showmen that would be.

• 35:53Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 05

  Relish the opportu- it's kind of, even when we did that Pope thing.

• 35:59Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, we got to talk, we got to.

• 36:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:00Conan O'Brien?

  Well, let's back it up quickly.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:02Conan O'Brien?

  Five months ago, something like that, you contacted me out of the blue and said, would you be willing to go to Rome and meet the Pope? Which is the weirdest, to this day, it's I think it's it's the third weirdest text I've ever had. The other two I can't say on the air. Uh, this, um, this text came in and I thought, are you kidding me? And so I I contacted you back and then it turned out insane as if some higher power was at work. That my wife, my son and I were going to be in Italy at Lake Como that week. So literally all we had to do was get on a train and go down and and be part of this.

• 36:41Conan O'Brien?

  Because they were inviting comedians. So it's you, me, Chris Rock, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  Julia Louise.

• 36:48Conan O'Brien?

  Julia Ruy Difus. Uh, I mean, the list goes on. David Sedaris, Take Notaro.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, just, uh, Rami, just, but, you know, just really interesting. I mean, it's such a surreal experience, but like in that setting, like, I don't know if you remember, because we we all went in there. It was like every.

• 37:07Conan O'Brien?

  First of all, it's, I think they told us to be outside the Vatican at the gates at 6:50 in the morning or something. I mean. The sun is just coming up in Rome and I thought, doesn't the Pope's, he's the Pope. He should be sleep. I would be like hitting this. If I was the Pope, I would hit my snooze alarm constantly. I would just sleep as late as possible.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  He's like in his eighties.

• 37:27Conan O'Brien?

  They, they told us that we were like his third thing of the day. That he gets up at like five in the morning. And so we got there and then they bring us into the Vatican and they sit us down this surreal room.

• 37:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, and there's comedians from every country. There is probably a humorous take on where there was a meeting and someone was like, well, why don't we bring in the comedians from throughout the world? But the Pope was, you know, it was about humor, how we could help. I don't know.

• 37:59Conan O'Brien?

  No, it was actually, he gave his speech, his speech was in Italian.

• 38:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 38:04Conan O'Brien?

  So we couldn't understand it, but they gave us the printout of what, of the speech and it was actually very bea-, it was very beautiful. You know, it was a very nice unifying idea about comedy and how it relates to bringing people together. And I thought, well, that's.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  And humor is a level of honesty and all that. Yeah.

• 38:22Conan O'Brien?

  But he didn't have an ender.

• 38:25Conan O'Brien?

  And we were bowing in.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  I, I did notes on the thing and I handed, I'm like, this, here's my rewrite.

• 38:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but here's the thing, you did it while, you did it while he was doing it, which was very rude.

• 38:35Speaker 05

  Punch ups, you know what I mean? Some punch ups, you know?

• 38:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. So that was a very surreal experience.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we, we are in this room in the Vatican and there's comedians from all the different countries, like Stephen Merchant. There was, there were some countries where you're like, well, shouldn't they have more people from, like, there was no one from the Philippines. I was like, I, that's, I've been to the Philippines. That's a pretty Catholic country.

• 38:58Conan O'Brien?

  And there were a couple of people like Quiz and they were like, ah, I'm more of a weatherman.

• 39:04Conan O'Brien?

  A lighthearted weatherman. I'm like, well, you're not a comedian. No, sometimes I say a low pressure front, more like high pressure front.

• 39:14Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, but yeah, it was just a little.

• 39:17Speaker 05

  I'm a cartoonist.

• 39:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  So there's 300, I don't know how many.

• 39:23Conan O'Brien?

  All over the world, yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 05

  All over the world, sitting in this room. It was everyone that couldn't behave in church or synagogue. Or in the mosque was in this room. And, and then there would be, because it was his third meeting, there'd be these people that would walk by.

• 39:39Conan O'Brien?

  The Swiss Guards came out.

• 39:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 39:41Conan O'Brien?

  The Swiss Guards came out and did this whole, they're, they're wearing the outfit of the Swiss Guard, which is the most, which was designed by.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  Uh, Leo, uh.

• 39:51Conan O'Brien?

  Leonardo DiCaprio, right. Leonardo.

• 39:54Conan O'Brien?

  Leonardo da Vinci designed it. And if Leonardo da Vinci hadn't designed it, they would have changed it a long time ago.

• 40:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 40:00Conan O'Brien?

  Because it looks like a cross between a clown costume and someone who's working at, uh, you know, a ground rounder. I don't know, it just looked insane. They come out with pikes, they do a whole thing, and then the Pope came out.

• 40:12Speaker 05

  And they're walking by, so there, there's people, you feel like you're, it's, so you're just sitting in the room waiting, and there's people, these characters that go by that are from like medieval times.

• 40:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 40:23Speaker 05

  You're like, what is?

• 40:24Conan O'Brien?

  It was the medieval fair.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  It's like, what is going on? So you think, oh, the Pope's coming. But in that setting, do you remember Jimmy Fallon stood up and did bits? And I was like, he's the king of the clowns.

• 40:38Conan O'Brien?

  He, well, the rest of us were like, well, we gotta.

• 40:40Speaker 05

  We should be respectful.

• 40:41Conan O'Brien?

  We, we, the rest of us are being kind of respectful. He did like an eight-minute Mr. Bean bit where he can't find his chair and he keeps flopping down and falling down. And, and, and we're.

• 40:55Conan O'Brien?

  And he's like, wow! Whoa! And then he gets up and turns the chair around, but it's going the wrong way, and he's like, who's the haba-hoobah?

• 41:03Speaker 05

  But it was very funny.

• 41:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 05

  But it was also, it was, it was this meeting of everyone who couldn't behave, who was at one point in eighth grade, sent to the principal's office. It was fascinating.

• 41:16Conan O'Brien?

  My favorite was the part where we're all going up, they line us up and we all go up to shake hands with the Pope.

• 41:20Speaker 05

  Because that was also fun, seeing people's different reactions.

• 41:24Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, Stephen Colbert, very, I mean, it was, uh, he's, he's very pious and devout and, you know.

• 41:31Speaker 05

  Probably knows more about Catholicism than the Pope.

• 41:34Conan O'Brien?

  Oh. And also, he asked me the night before, like, I think in front of everybody was, we all went out to dinner. And he said, Conan, do you think the, do you think the Pope is aware of your work? And I said, absolutely not. He's an Argentinian man who is in his 80s. And you're like, no, there's no way he knows me. I think, I think Stephen was hoping that the Pope was big fans of all of ours.

• 41:59Speaker 05

  Oh, real? Well, I know that.

• 42:01Conan O'Brien?

  Well, he knows you, I think.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  No, well, I mean, I've met him, but I don't think that.

• 42:05Conan O'Brien?

  Well, he went to your high school.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  He went to the Pope.

• 42:08Conan O'Brien?

  With Robert, it's you, Roberts, and the Pope.

• 42:10Speaker 05

  But Stephen did, I think, he does the, uh, the audible, or the audio of all the book, uh, the Pope's books.

• 42:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, and he told that to the Pope.

• 42:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:22Conan O'Brien?

  When he was up there.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  And the Pope just probably gave him like.

• 42:24Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  Get out of here.

• 42:25Conan O'Brien?

  I asked, like, he said, I could see him, if you see the videotape, uh, Stephen's talking to him for a little bit. The rest of us are just going like, uh, hello, your Eminence, and, and, nice place you got here. And then we move on and, um, you know, uh, nice job plundering the world's gold over an 800-year period.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  Nice conquest of South America.

• 42:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:50Conan O'Brien?

  No one advertises like you guys. You know, whatever. But Stephen's talking to him for a bit, and I asked Stephen what he talked about, and he said, I told him, you know, uh, you know, your Holiness, I do your audiobook, and I narrate it, and blah, blah, blah. And he said, the Pope used his hand to push him. Uh, used his hand to push him down the line. That's a nice, uh, now get the fuck away from me.

• 43:14Conan O'Brien?

  Did you bring gold? No, we didn't bring gold. Did I steal your gold? No, you can't do that anymore. I'll get your gold.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  He's a leprechaun.

• 43:25Conan O'Brien?

  He's a leprechaun now. I'll get your gold, you'll see.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  That's a spicy meatloaf.

• 43:30Conan O'Brien?

  I'll send a conquistador, I get your gold. No, you can't really do that anymore. You want to taste a pizza pie? I've got a pizza pie! Wow, I'm glad they didn't let me perform at that thing. That would have gone badly. But it was crazy, and then they said at the end that we got to... I thought we were getting a... I sound like a real dick now, but I thought, "Well, you've come all this way." Well, for me, I pretended that I flew all the way from LA when I just literally got an Uber from Lake Como. And then demanded, "Pay for my airfare back." Um, I didn't do that, but, uh, I thought, then they said, "And then you may tour the Vatican." But basically, they just shoved us through a door, and then we were in with all the tourists. You know, and tourists were like, "What are you doing here?"

• 44:14Speaker 05

  It was weird. After that event, they led us into this room, and there was this red carpet, like, media, and I was like, "Oh, now I know why we're here." But it was kind of-

• 44:23Conan O'Brien?

  It's what they do in an award show.

• 44:24Speaker 05

  It's-

• 44:24Conan O'Brien?

  Everyone's there to get their media, and I, that's-

• 44:27Speaker 05

  And also get their, get the message out. You know what I mean? And which, and as you said, it was a very sincere message, and-

• 44:35Conan O'Brien?

  It was beautiful. It was a really nice, it was a nice message. Uh, my golden conquistadora riff aside,

• 44:44Conan O'Brien?

  800 years of plundering still, um, uh, yeah, it was a lovely message.

• 44:48Speaker 05

  Great example of something that's cool, complicated, like you've been talking to Julia Louise Dreyfus. There's some complexity, like, at the dinner, she's like, "I don't know how I feel about some of this." I'm like, "That's why it's interesting, because it's complex."

• 45:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, not, we all went in there, I think, for the most part, with complex feelings about this institution and its place in the modern world, and, uh, and, and of course, the women who were present had very complicated feelings.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 45:18Conan O'Brien?

  And it was really nice to talk about all that.

• 45:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. I love doing events like that, where it's a little bit, you're gonna anger some people. Like, I did the Al Smith Dinner, which is, you know-

• 45:30Conan O'Brien?

  With Trump there.

• 45:31Speaker 05

  Trump was there.

• 45:32Conan O'Brien?

  Kamala Harris did not go, is that right?

• 45:33Speaker 05

  She did not go. And there was, because there was part of me that's like, that was, uh, you know, I'm not a Trump guy, but like, there was part of me, and there were plenty of people that- Were invited. They're like, I'm not even gonna sit in the same room as him.

• 45:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Do you know what I mean? And so there is something where, and so when I did that, I knew there were gonna be people on the left and on the right that were gonna be angry, which almost kind of ties back to like, you know, that moment of disc where people are uncomfortable that it's kind of you relish it.

• 46:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  And the challenge, which kind of the, the no win situation of the Al Smith dinner. But I love history and

• 46:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  the association with.

• 46:15Conan O'Brien?

  Usually, I, I, I'm a, usually if there's a chance to, I have a list of, my life will, is finite. I was told recently, no. We're, we're only here for a certain amount of time and I do, I, and I'm a history buff. And when I see an opportunity to be, whether it's a White House Correspondence Dinner or something, even when I know it's gonna be tough.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:35Conan O'Brien?

  It's a tough room. I think you gotta go and, and be part of that. So it's the Al Smith dinner. Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And there are people today that on my Twitter or X or whatever it's called, will be like, I can't believe you were in the same room with him. And I'm like, well, I don't, I feel like that's kind of the opposite of discourse. Like you shouldn't.

• 46:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 05

  So anyway, that's why I'm running for senate.

• 46:57Speaker 07

  As Tim Walz.

• 46:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Conan O'Brien?

  Who's as your brother.

• 47:03Conan O'Brien?

  Jim Gaffigan, The Skinny. This is again, to your being prolific, you've got another special. They have been stunningly successful. You've won countless awards. I think you have every award one can have. And I think it's too many and you should give me some. But The Skinny, you're addressing weight loss. You're addressing people's obsession and, and weird feelings about weight loss and food, which is sort of a huge topic right now.

• 47:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it's, I think it's really peculiar how people are secretive about taking an appetite suppressant. Like, or maybe they aren't secretive. I mean, but people, there's people that walk around with their hair dyed a different color. And we all know that, but nobody's, nobody would think it was that weird.

• 47:53Conan O'Brien?

  You've talked about how there is kind of a shaming of people that have a food issue. And then somehow there are other areas where we have a completely different, like drinking can, can be seen as very cool.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  Romantic.

• 48:08Conan O'Brien?

  It's romantic and the, the.

• 48:10Speaker 05

  I can't put the bottle down. Yeah.

• 48:13Conan O'Brien?

  Sounds much cooler than I can't put the cream pie.

• 48:16Speaker 05

  I love, I love donuts.

• 48:19Conan O'Brien?

  I want a donut.

• 48:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think there is, I think that's what this drug, I mean, this is not humorous, but like, I think that that's what this drug proves is that like, some people, the, the, it's, it's, might not be psychological. It's, it's a chemical thing, cause it's fixed by chemical, that they have a com- a chemical compulsion. I mean, I come from a family that is like, big eaters, like, ah, ah, ah, you know, um, and that's, that's a good sound effect, right?

• 48:49Speaker 05

  But I think-

• 48:49Conan O'Brien?

  The way you did that, it looks like it would be Cookie Monster where most of it doesn't go in. The cookies are just, cookies are just bouncing off the- That's why you're so hungry, you're not getting much in the mouth.

• 49:00Speaker 05

  Such waste, that Cookie Monster.

• 49:02Conan O'Brien?

  Cookie Monster never actually tasted a cookie.

• 49:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:04Conan O'Brien?

  It just, he just carried off the felt backstop of his mouth.

• 49:09Speaker 05

  It's like he wasn't even really eating it, it's sad.

• 49:13Conan O'Brien?

  But this is, but you know, there is a cultural part of it too, which is, you talk about it from a Midwestern point of view. I've seen the Boston Irish side of it, which is, it is the way in my family that we showed love, was eating, because it wasn't hugging and saying, I love you. And I, and, and I love my parents, love my family, it was just cultural, it wasn't about that, we didn't drink, it was a dry house. And so, no one could talk about sex-

• 49:43Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 49:44Conan O'Brien?

  -in a million years, I still don't understand how it works.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:47Conan O'Brien?

  And then, what do you have? You have, we're, I'm gonna, we're gonna cook a giant meal and I'll eat it together, which is, we're gonna eat tons of ham and potato-

• 49:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:58Conan O'Brien?

  -and all the butter in the world, and that is gonna be how we show our affection and love for each other and have a communal moment.

• 50:06Speaker 05

  Celebrate, or you know, lick your wounds by, uh, overeating.

• 50:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 05

  Like, my brother and I was like, ah, I could throw up. That's what, you know, like, when you've eaten so much, you're like, ah, ah, I could throw up, I feel great, you know what I mean?

• 50:22Conan O'Brien?

  We did it.

• 50:23Speaker 05

  We did it.

• 50:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so, so, uh, you talk about that, and you talk about, obviously, how the drug has changed your life?

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:34Conan O'Brien?

  And you

• 50:35Speaker 05

  But I also think it's temporary, meaning we're eventually gonna find out that it makes people grow tails or something like that, right? So I I view this weight loss as completely, I don't think I'm gonna be, not that I'm even super thin, but I imagine it's it's an ongoing battle, my weight, right?

• 50:56Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, but it's also, I mean, over the years, it was such a part of your comedy, too.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:00Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, you, I mean, so funny talking about it and talking about your obsession with food.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, the love affair with food. And now it's alcohol. No.

• 51:11Speaker 05

  But there is something, but the skinny, there is about the appetizer present. But I I use the title, The Skinny, because that's, you know, you you do this, you write the stand up and then kind of the theme, you see the theme when you look at the material. And and some of the special is about parenting teenagers. Like, I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to parent teenagers because they, and I say that with empathy and also exhaustion and part of, I don't want to do it anymore, is because it's so difficult.

• 51:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 51:49Speaker 05

  And and I think, because I think adult humans, we have a built in forgetter of the anxiety and the stress of being a teenager because it's it's painful for them. So when they're going through it and you're this parent, it's it's not an easy road, even for the best kids. And, you know, and so that's some of, you know, so I complain about my kids, but I do that in every special, too. But it's it's a different type of complaining.

• 52:17Conan O'Brien?

  But then you get to pay that, then you can say, my bitching about you paid for your tuition, paid for this roof.

• 52:24Speaker 05

  And since they're teenagers, I know they'll never watch the special, so it doesn't matter.

• 52:29Conan O'Brien?

  They're not your demo.

• 52:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 52:31Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, well, Jim Gaffigan, The Skinny, is now available to stream on Hulu. And Jim, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for lending your comedic genius to my show.

• 52:44Conan O'Brien?

  For over a 30 year period and then continuing to come back and do the podcast. I love talking to you and I'm kind of in awe of just you're you're so talented and so funny. And I just, when you're around, I'm in a good mood.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  Oh, well, thank you.

• 53:03Conan O'Brien?

  So you can't leave.

• 53:04Speaker 05

  Very nice.

• 53:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I like, I can tell I'm really getting to you when your mouth gets very small. You went, oh, thank you.

• 53:09Speaker 05

  Right here, I don't know what to do. I'm not comfortable with the compliments.

• 53:14Conan O'Brien?

  Well, then you like this part.

• 53:15Speaker 05

  Very weird.

• 53:16Conan O'Brien?

  You're a real shitty guy, Jim.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's more like it. I don't like the compliments, you know? What are we in group therapy?

• 53:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you got an ugly mug, see?

• 53:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's more like it. That feels better.

• 53:36Speaker 02

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• 54:11Speaker 02

  Oh, here comes a new client. Time to share the secret. For salon-quality hair repair, it's actually Pantene.

• 54:24Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, guys, we're coming up on the sixth anniversary of this podcast. That's unbelievable. I know, six years. Yeah. So we're gonna do a state of the podcast. Yes, remember, we haven't done one of these in a while. This is because, you know me, I'm more of an artistic type. I paint what I see and I'm removed from, of course, the commerce of it all. I'm above that, high up in the clouds.

• 54:50Speaker 07

  So you don't get paid?

• 54:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, I get, I get paid and I'm, I mean, if I, if they miss my payment by a day.

• 54:58Conan O'Brien?

  And if it's one penny off, I'm just a dog with a bone. I'm all over it. But again, then I go up in the clouds.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  Well, as always, we like to bring Adam in.

• 55:09Conan O'Brien?

  Adam in, Adam, Adam Sacks, the guru, the genius, the high muckety muck who makes it all run. I call you, you pull the strings. I'm about a puppet. You guys are sort of like hand puppets, but I'm more of a marionette.

• 55:22Speaker 07

  Oh.

• 55:23Conan O'Brien?

  And, um.

• 55:24Speaker 07

  What?

• 55:24Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just curious how it's all going.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  It's going really well. I feel like I start every state of the podcast like that, but we've been lucky and knocking on wood. We've been lucky enough to have a really good run here, six years in. The audience is as strong as ever. And I'll get into in a second about where we're expanding our audience.

• 55:40Conan O'Brien?

  Prepared a whole outline.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, mostly I want, I wanted to first of all, talk about the big guests we've had because we've had, we've been on a run with guests. That is just like unbelievable. The show has always had great guests, but you know, most recently we've had, I just wanted to highlight a few. Tom Hanks, Al Pacino, Jon Stewart, Goldie Hawn, Davido Yelloo, Jeff Bridges, Quinta Brunson, Don Cheadle, the Beastie Boys, Ron Howard, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson. I mean, this is a crazy list of guests.

• 56:05Conan O'Brien?

  Big names, but also I thought great conversations. Everyone came to play.

• 56:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. And these types of names are not, you know, even a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago, six years ago. These were not people you would ever even like hear on a podcast. It's pretty amazing. Al Pacino, I don't know. He doesn't do a lot of podcasts. It's pretty, pretty amazing.

• 56:22Conan O'Brien?

  Right. Either things are going very well for us or very badly for Al Pacino. And you'd have to decide what that means.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  And then I think the biggest update that I, that I think, you know, a lot of it is pretty status quo based on last year. But the biggest update that we've done is we're experimenting, Conan, you probably don't even know this.

• 56:38Conan O'Brien?

  I love that you put in there that I'm 1987 Reagan.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  You may not know that we're experimenting with putting full length video episodes up. And it's only just been an experiment so far.

• 56:50Speaker 07

  That are like an hour long?

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, we've done two of them so far.

• 56:53Speaker 07

  And people watch them?

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Well, that was the thing. We wanted to see, would people watch them? We put up Larry David and Harrison Ford. We put up those full episodes and yeah, it was an experiment to see, would people watch them? Also.

• 57:04Conan O'Brien?

  I'm waiting with bated breath for the answer.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  The answer is yes. I mean, we. We're curious, would it be like something where it was a substitute audience? You know, where it was like cannibalizing the podcast audience? People would instead listen or watch it on video. But instead, it looks like it's really incremental. Like, there's more people, we have, you know, we have a huge YouTube audience. And we had been getting tons of fan requests.

• 57:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, people were clamoring for this.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  Constantly, we put out, we've put out clips now for a few years, obviously, video clips. They want to watch it.

• 57:31Speaker 07

  I know, but they like, okay.

• 57:33Conan O'Brien?

  I do think, I understand because Harrison Ford, he was, he's so funny in a different way that people aren't always accustomed to. But also to be able to see, when you see Harrison Ford, when his, his expressions and his deadpan.

• 57:48Speaker 07

  That's true.

• 57:48Conan O'Brien?

  It does add something to it. I'm, I'm glad, I mean, first of all, I, I, I love this medium. And I was at first skeptical because I love the purity of, no, you just hear the voices. But once I started seeing some of the videos, some of these people, I thought, no, I, I like that too.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  I was skeptical too. I was the same way. I liked the purity of audio. And, you know, I've been in the space, Matt's been in the space forever. And it was always very pure audio only. But the truth is, people want to see the video. YouTube is the number one, like, media consumption platform in the world, you know, more than any streamer. And people are consuming podcasts now. It's now become the number one platform for podcast consumption.

• 58:25Speaker 07

  Get out!

• 58:26Speaker 04

  Yes. So that is part of the bigger macro trend is that like, people are expecting now that they're going, there's going to be a video component to podcasts.

• 58:34Conan O'Brien?

  Interesting. I'm just glad you said macro trend.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  I knew there was something that I would say that would just come out, that would, uh.

• 58:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, sure. No, that's, that's what this podcast is all about. Bringing business speak into your ear.

• 58:46Speaker 07

  So we're gonna be on camera more.

• 58:48Conan O'Brien?

  Well, that's, this brings up an interesting thing. Uh, none of us are, well, Sonya, you might be wearing makeup.

• 58:53Speaker 07

  I do, I, I wear makeup because of the YouTube component.

• 58:56Conan O'Brien?

  I'm not wearing anything. I think that's clear to the viewers. Have there been comments about my ghastly appearance?

• 59:01Speaker 04

  I haven't seen any.

• 59:02Conan O'Brien?

  Visible eye vein?

• 59:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 59:03Speaker 07

  He wouldn't tell you if there was. Yeah.

• 59:06Conan O'Brien?

  So I'm looking at you, you're staring back at me with your Michael Sarah eyes. And I have no idea if you're lying to me or not.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  I, I honestly have not seen any comments. Somebody, Chalomi would have come in and dusted your vein if there were comments.

• 59:20Conan O'Brien?

  Dusted my vein?

• 59:21Speaker 04

  I don't know what you do to a vein.

• 59:23Conan O'Brien?

  I also love.

• 59:24Speaker 07

  Shalim coming in.

• 59:26Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god, oh, he would be the one. I love, wait, wait, let's sit with this for a second. Dusted my vein.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Chills, we need a vein dusting.

• 59:32Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, Conan, Conan, you seem like you're in a pretty good mood today. Let's just say I got my vein dusted last night.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  Uh oh, we got a shiny vein, chills.

• 59:41Conan O'Brien?

  That just sounds like a euphemism.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:44Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, someone looks, someone's in a good mood. Yeah, I got my vein dusted. Woo, couple of tequilas, got my vein dusted.

• 59:52Speaker 07

  Oh my god.

• 59:52Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, yeah, I mean, that's, um, that's a question is, A, it starts with just some light makeup, which I'm still not doing, uh, sorry, YouTube. But then it's gonna get into me having radical facial surgery if I wanna stay in the podcast game. And that, and I fled to podcasts, like a vampire fleeing the sun to get back to his crypt. I fled to podcasts because I knew this Irish melon was rotting fast in the, uh, in the autumn heat. And here I am now on camera.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  Well, you joked that you tried to, like, you were, it was something different from the late night show, and then little by little, it's sort of.

• 1:00:26Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah, you keep adding things and soon it's gonna be, yeah. We're bringing Andy in in a band.

• 1:00:31Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  And you want me, you want me to get rid of these microphones? And I'm like, what do you want, lav mics?

• 1:00:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Conan O'Brien?

  No, I like, I like the mics, I like the mics.

• 1:00:38Speaker 07

  When you talk about your face, should we be like, oh, no, you look great.

• 1:00:41Conan O'Brien?

  No, you don't have to do that because I get it.

• 1:00:43Speaker 07

  Oh.

• 1:00:43Conan O'Brien?

  Whenever I talk about my face in these terms, everybody just quietly nods.

• 1:00:48Speaker 07

  No, I think you look great. I really do. And I think that I do, I do get self-conscious about, like, should I be dressing different? I mean, makeup is a thing. If they, how many people watch these videos? Like, thirty thousand? Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands?

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  I know. Hundreds of thousands, approaching millions.

• 1:01:05Conan O'Brien?

  Approaching millions. But also, Sona, can I say something? This is, and this is a compliment, you have beautiful skin.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Conan O'Brien?

  You have skin that has some melanin in it. You have, right?

• 1:01:17Speaker 07

  I do, yeah.

• 1:01:18Conan O'Brien?

  You can get a tan.

• 1:01:19Speaker 07

  I am Armenian and Greek.

• 1:01:21Conan O'Brien?

  You are Armenian and Greek.

• 1:01:22Speaker 07

  Both of those come with some color.

• 1:01:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Gourley and I look like we were just, they found us.

• 1:01:27Speaker 07

  Hey, don't take me down with you.

• 1:01:29Conan O'Brien?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:01:30Speaker 07

  No, it's fair.

• 1:01:31Conan O'Brien?

  I'm bringing you with me. But we were trapped in a cave for a couple of years, and then they rescued us. And when we went into the cave, we had a bone marrow disorder.

• 1:01:42Conan O'Brien?

  So you are very fortunate that I don't, you always look very beautiful. You always look like you're wearing makeup, even when you're not wearing makeup.

• 1:01:48Speaker 07

  Well, that's nice. Thank you. I do get self-conscious about my hair. Don't you, I mean, you have.

• 1:01:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, your hair is a mess.

• 1:01:53Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, it is. It is. But you have iconic hair. Don't you wanna like, don't you worry about your poof?

• 1:01:58Conan O'Brien?

  I got over that.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  But couldn't we just?

• 1:02:00Conan O'Brien?

  I got this headset on.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Do this, agree to just give up, because that's what I've done. That's why I'm always just wearing a ball cap and.

• 1:02:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't. You know what? I have an idea.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  A guy who fell off a truck.

• 1:02:09Conan O'Brien?

  I have an idea. Let's make a headset that has a Conan Pompadour attached, a fake one. So when I put my headset on, a Conan Pompadour, so the iconic swoop that some of the old fans wanna see is there and quaff.

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  But we don't have to wear those.

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  No, I think we should sell those in the merch store.

• 1:02:29Conan O'Brien?

  What? Headset?

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, with the poof, kind of like the Groucho Marx.

• 1:02:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes. And if you put it, let's say you're listening to your favorite tunes. I know how kids talk.

• 1:02:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Conan O'Brien?

  Um, you're putting on, you're listening to your favorite beats.

• 1:02:40Speaker 07

  Bun Diddy's?

• 1:02:41Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, and, uh, or whatever.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 1:02:44Conan O'Brien?

  Or you're gaming and you wanna put your headset on, you're playing Glitblorp. You put the headset on and the hair comes right down with it.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll work on the prototype.

• 1:02:52Conan O'Brien?

  Seriously.

• 1:02:53Speaker 07

  Those'll sell like hotcakes, boss.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  You did it.

• 1:02:58Conan O'Brien?

  That was great. Or we could do one with the Sona, too, where your hair comes down on top of it, all 90 pounds.

• 1:03:03Speaker 07

  Okay. You know what? How about, uh, so the state of the podcast?

• 1:03:07Conan O'Brien?

  State of the podcast, good.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Well, I have a good question. Do you remember last time we did State of the Podcast and you had run a study on all these?

• 1:03:13Speaker 04

  Brand safety.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, brand safety. And I remember asking at that time, because there was like some things that were ticking on the chart about like profanity and sexual conversations and stuff. But then, on that episode, we ended up using so much profanity.

• 1:03:27Conan O'Brien?

  Talking about profanity.

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Did that up our profanity?

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  What has happened in the world of brand safety is the pendulum has swung back, swung back to be a little more sane. It was getting so crazy. If you remember some of the, we were not rated well on brand safety and part of it was like, we were talking about war. Do you remember? And it was like, if you talk about, if you talk about war, you get like a, you know, a red mark. Um, and then obviously all the sex and profanity stuff. But now the.

• 1:03:54Conan O'Brien?

  Or, and of course, the nonstop sex and profanity.

• 1:03:56Speaker 07

  We did not change anything after we had that conversation.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  No, but brands changed. I think brands realized, oh, we're being too conservative and we're missing out on, it wasn't even, didn't even have to do with our show, but we're missing out on a lot of good content.

• 1:04:08Conan O'Brien?

  The Church of Latter Day Saints is back on as an advertiser.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's good. Glad they're back.

• 1:04:13Speaker 03

  Just for a trial, because, you know, one of us always has to use one of the products, I had to join the Mormon church.

• 1:04:18Speaker 07

  Oh, okay.

• 1:04:19Conan O'Brien?

  Had to. Had to. They saw you and assumed that you were there to talk.

• 1:04:24Speaker 07

  I really can see you in that white bum gown.

• 1:04:26Conan O'Brien?

  Come in, brother. Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 07

  You're very Mormon-y.

• 1:04:28Conan O'Brien?

  You are so Mormon-y.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Really? You think so?

• 1:04:31Speaker 07

  You got a Mormon vibe. You got an LDS vibe.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Ah, really?

• 1:04:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Conan O'Brien?

  And you have several wives.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  One thing I will say, though, just in the state of the podcast, is this is, I would say this is open-ended. Like, we should check back in in a year and see what the future looks like with video. Because we are, there's a blurring of lines happening in general, where there's, you know, YouTube creators have been out there for years doing their YouTube shows, podcasters have been out there for years doing just audio shows, and there's a blurring of lines where now there's, there's not as much of a differentiation between these different digital content creators.

• 1:05:03Conan O'Brien?

  I don't want this to become a TV show. I fled television.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it did. It kind of did.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  But it's not in content, because it's casual conversation, it's off the cuff, and we don't have a plan.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  But when you say TV show, you're talking about where it's distributed, mostly, because it's a video show now. I mean, it's, again, we're just experimenting with it.

• 1:05:23Conan O'Brien?

  When I said I don't want it to become a TV show, what I meant was unless there's money in that.

• 1:05:28Speaker 03

  Ah, okay, well.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is the worst of both worlds, because there's not TV money, and yet it's on video.

• 1:05:37Conan O'Brien?

  All right, well, I was glad, I think this is mostly good news. I think it's all good news. It's all good news, and, um...

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  And it's fun to still experiment and see where this is all going.

• 1:05:45Conan O'Brien?

  You know, it's, I'll say again, I've said it many times, but I have more fun doing this than, than just about anything I can think of. And I've had a lot of fun in my career. I've had, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the late-night show, but this is so fun and so loose, so, um...

• 1:06:04Speaker 07

  You're welcome.

• 1:06:05Conan O'Brien?

  Let it become what it's going to become.

• 1:06:07Speaker 07

  You're welcome.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:06:08Conan O'Brien?

  There.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  We got you.

• 1:06:10Speaker 07

  You're welcome.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, don't worry about a thing. We'll keep doing it.

• 1:06:12Conan O'Brien?

  And I'll hold your hand. Let's hold hands.

• 1:06:14Speaker 07

  My hands are a little clammy.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Is there like a clammy too?

• 1:06:18Conan O'Brien?

  Oil on these?

• 1:06:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, I lotion up a lot.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  You're warm. You're very warm.

• 1:06:21Speaker 07

  You are very warm.

• 1:06:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well, talent burns hot.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  I said you were warm, not hot.

• 1:06:28Conan O'Brien?

  I have a lukewarm talent. All right, peace out, Tupac.

• 1:06:35Conan O'Brien?

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessien and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gorley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

• 1:06:55Conan O'Brien?

  Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

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